[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 38 (Monday, March 1, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S959-S960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENATE RESOLUTION 82--HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF JOHN ROBERT LEWIS 
 AND COMMENDING JOHN ROBERT LEWIS FOR HIS TOWERING ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE 
                  NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

  Mr. OSSOFF (for himself, Mr. Romney, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Reed, Mr. 
Cardin, and Mr. Leahy) submitted the following resolution; which was 
considered and agreed to:

                               S. Res. 82

       Whereas John Robert Lewis (referred to in this preamble as 
     ``Mr. Lewis'') was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, 
     Alabama, the third of 10 children born to his mother Willie 
     Mae (nee Carter) and his father Eddie Lewis, a sharecropper;
       Whereas, at 5 years old, Mr. Lewis was given responsibility 
     for the family chicken flock, including his favorite, Li'l 
     Pullet, which he tended with great care and to which he would 
     preach nearly every evening, which--
       (1) led his family to give Mr. Lewis the childhood nickname 
     of ``Preacher''; and
       (2) instilled in Mr. Lewis an early desire to enter the 
     clergy;
       Whereas, from a young age, Mr. Lewis insisted on attending 
     school daily, defying his parents' instructions to work the 
     family farm, which established within Mr. Lewis a lifelong 
     commitment to education and enlightenment;
       Whereas when Mr. Lewis was 15 years old he was ``shaken to 
     the core'', as described in his memoir ``Walking With the 
     Wind'', by the Mississippi murder of Emmett Till, deepening 
     his passionate opposition to segregation and Jim Crow laws;
       Whereas, as a high school student, Mr. Lewis intensely 
     followed the progress of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (referred 
     to in this preamble as the ``Boycott'') in 1955 and 1956, 
     awakening him to the power of nonviolent resistance to 
     segregation;
       Whereas Mr. Lewis wrote in his memoir that the Boycott 
     ``changed my life more than any other event before or 
     since'';
       Whereas, while following the progress of the Boycott, Mr. 
     Lewis was inspired by radio broadcasts featuring one of the 
     leaders of the Boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (referred 
     to in this preamble as ``Dr. King'')--
       (1) whom Mr. Lewis' parents referred to as ``that young 
     preacher''; and
       (2) whose example deepened Mr. Lewis' ambition to become a 
     minister;
       Whereas, inspired by Dr. King, Mr. Lewis, on February 16, 
     1956, 5 days before his 16th birthday, preached his first 
     public sermon, entitled ``A Praying Mother'', at Macedonia 
     Baptist Church in Troy, Alabama, which came from the First 
     Book of Samuel and discussed the example of Hannah, mother of 
     Samuel, which sermon made such an impact that it was 
     published in the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper;
       Whereas, on February 18, 1956, 2 days after Mr. Lewis gave 
     his first public sermon, a relative of Mr. Lewis, Thomas 
     Brewer of Columbus, Georgia, a voting rights activist working 
     with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
     People (referred to in this preamble as the ``NAACP''), was 
     shot to death by a white man who was never indicted for the 
     murder;
       Whereas Mr. Lewis joined the NAACP in the summer of 1956;
       Whereas, in 1958, Mr. Lewis wrote a letter to Dr. King, who 
     responded with a round trip bus ticket for Mr. Lewis to visit 
     Montgomery, Alabama, where Mr. Lewis and Dr. King met at 
     Reverend Ralph David Abernathy's First Baptist Church;
       Whereas, while a student at the American Baptist 
     Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. Lewis--
       (1) was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent 
     Coordinating Committee (referred to in this preamble as the 
     ``SNCC''); and
       (2) organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, pushing 
     Nashville to become the first major city in the South to 
     begin the desegregation of public facilities;
       Whereas Mr. Lewis graduated from the American Baptist 
     Theological Seminary in 1961, and was subsequently ordained 
     as a Baptist minister;
       Whereas, in 1961, Mr. Lewis became one of the 13 original 
     Freedom Riders, who challenged segregated interstate travel 
     throughout the South;

[[Page S960]]

       Whereas, at just 23 years old, Mr. Lewis helped organize 
     the 1964 March on Washington, at which--
       (1) Dr. King gave his famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech; and
       (2) Mr. Lewis vowed, in his address at the Lincoln 
     Memorial, to ``splinter the segregated South into a thousand 
     pieces and put them back together in the image of God and 
     democracy'';
       Whereas Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially 
     segregated hotels, restrooms, swimming pools, and public 
     parks for which he was brutally beaten, left unconscious in 
     his own blood, and arrested 40 times, spending countless 
     nights in county jails and 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary;
       Whereas, in 1963, as Chair of the SNCC, Mr. Lewis moved to 
     Atlanta, Georgia;
       Whereas, on March 7, 1965, on what would become known as 
     ``Bloody Sunday'', Mr. Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators 
     demanding their right to vote across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 
     in Selma, Alabama, where Mr. Lewis, who suffered a fractured 
     skull, and other demonstrators were met with violence and 
     police brutality;
       Whereas, after televised images of the Bloody Sunday 
     violence in Selma shocked the conscience of the United 
     States, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for equal voting 
     rights legislation before a joint session of Congress, which 
     evolved into his signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 
     U.S.C. 10301 et seq.) on August 6, 1965;
       Whereas, on December 21, 1968, Mr. Lewis married the love 
     of his life, Lillian Miles, who was his best friend, closest 
     ally, and most steadfast supporter until her death on 
     December 31, 2012, the 45th anniversary of their meeting;
       Whereas, in 1970, Mr. Lewis became director of the Voter 
     Education Project, which added nearly 4,000,000 minority 
     voters to the voter rolls and changed the political landscape 
     of the United States forever;
       Whereas, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Mr. 
     Lewis to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, which 
     was then a Federal volunteer agency;
       Whereas, in 1981, Mr. Lewis won elected office for the 
     first time as an at-large Councilman on the Atlanta City 
     Council, where he was a powerful advocate for ethics and 
     neighborhood preservation, including saving from destruction 
     the historic neighborhoods of the Old Fourth Ward, Inman 
     Park, Candler Park, and Druid Hills;
       Whereas, in 1982, Mr. Lewis worked with the American Jewish 
     Committee to found the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition, part 
     of his decades-long friendship and alliance with the Jewish 
     community of Georgia, which later led to the establishment of 
     the Congressional Black-Jewish caucus;
       Whereas, in 1986, Mr. Lewis became the second African 
     American to represent Georgia in Congress since 
     Reconstruction;
       Whereas Mr. Lewis fought for the passage of the Civil 
     Rights Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-166; 105 Stat. 1071), 
     which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush;
       Whereas, in 2001, Mr. Lewis was awarded the John F. Kennedy 
     Library Foundation Profile in Courage Award for ``his 
     extraordinary courage, leadership and commitment to civil 
     rights'';
       Whereas Mr. Lewis led the effort to build what is now known 
     as the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, one of the largest 
     Federal buildings in the United States;
       Whereas, in 2003, Mr. Lewis secured authorization for 
     construction of the National Museum of African American 
     History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC;
       Whereas, in 2007, Mr. Lewis introduced the Emmett Till 
     Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 (28 U.S.C. 509 note; 
     Public Law 110-344) to investigate unsolved civil rights 
     crimes, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush 
     in 2008;
       Whereas, in 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Mr. Lewis 
     the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor 
     in the United States;
       Whereas Mr. Lewis' colleagues referred to him as the 
     ``conscience of the Congress'' for his--
       (1) relentless pursuit of justice;
       (2) unflinching commitment to building what Dr. King and 
     Mr. Lewis referred to as the ``Beloved Community'', a society 
     without poverty, racism, or violence; and
       (3) willingness to make what he called ``good trouble, 
     necessary trouble'' to confront acts of injustice; and
       Whereas, on July 17, 2020, Mr. Lewis died, devastating his 
     family, his staff, the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, 
     and the people of the United States, who united to honor his 
     monumental legacy of hard work and self-sacrifice in the 
     pursuit of liberty and justice for all, which culminated in 
     Mr. Lewis lying in state at the United States Capitol before 
     his memorial service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) honors the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis, an 
     American hero and civil rights leader who--
       (A) faced brutality and suffered grievous injuries while 
     remaining steadfastly committed to the nonviolent struggle 
     for civil rights;
       (B) dedicated his life to defending the dignity of all 
     people and building the ``Beloved Community''; and
       (C) spent more than 3 decades as a Member of Congress 
     defending and strengthening civil rights; and
       (2) commends John Robert Lewis for his towering 
     achievements in the nonviolent struggle for civil rights.

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